Carolina tennis beats State 4-3

Brett Clark.
Brett Clark.
The 11th-ranked North Carolina men’s tennis team has made a habit lately of dropping the doubles point but rallying to win on the strength of its singles play. It followed that pattern again Friday evening when it outlasted conference foe NC State 4-3 in a match as tight as the score would indicate.

The match was played before 209 fans at the Dail Outdoor Tennis Stadium as Carolina improved to 14-2 on the season and won its league opener. The 25th-ranked Wolfpack is now 11-4 and 0-2 in the ACC. UNC’s win total for 2014 is already two more than it had last year when Carolina finished 12-13.

The match had multiple momentum swings but Carolina ended up pulling out the victory by recording four singles wins, including a pair of three-set triumphs off the rackets of Brayden Schnur and Oystein Steiro.

Carolina has now won a trio of recent matches against nationally-ranked teams after dropping the doubles point. Carolina beat TCU in that fashion last month and most recently downed seventh-ranked Texas in Chapel Hill last Monday 4-3

After freshmen Ronnie Schneider and Jack Murray clinched an 8-3 win at #3 doubles, the Wolfpack rallied to win at #1 and #2 doubles to take a 1-0 lead in the team score. Robbie Mudge and Ian Dempster prevailed 8-6 over Nelson Vick and Oystein Steiro at #1. The doubles point then came down to court 2 which needed a tiebreaker to decide the match. The 27th-ranked tandem of Nick Horton and Sean Weber defeated Brett Clark and Brayden Schnur 8-7 (7-3).

The Tar Heels put on their rally hats and got the four singles wins capped by Oystein Steiro’s come-from-behind victory at the #5 spot.

Brett Clark started the rally with a 6-4, 6-4 win over NCSU’s Thomas Wiegel at #3. Shortly thereafter, freshman Ronnie Schneider won at #2 singles over 98th-ranked Robbie Mudge 7-5, 6-3. The 32nd-ranked Schneider improved to 12-1 in dual matches this spring and 24-3 overall for the 2013-14 season.

NC State answered with a straight set win at #6 as Nick Horton downed Nelson Vick. But Carolina retook the lead at 3-2 with freshman Brayden Schnur winning over #41 Austin Powell 6-4, 3-6, 6-3. Schnur, ranked 18th nationally, is 11-0 in dual matches this spring.

State tied the match at 3-3 when Sean Weber rebounded from dropping the first set to beat UNC’s Jack Murray 2-6, 7-5, 6-1 at #4 singles.

All eyes then turned to court 5 where Steiro, a UNC junior, had lost the first set to Simon Norenius 7-4. But the Norwegian native persevered to win the second set 6-4 and then handily won the third set 6-1, serving an ace on his first match point.

Coach Sam Paul’s Tar Heels will be back in action again Sunday at 1 p.m. when it plays host to 13th-ranked Wake Forest at the Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center.

– News release

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